It's good to see you again. · 10:51pm Apr 9th, 2021
It'll be nice to see who's still around, at the end of this blog. If this one feels a little heavy or gloomy along the way, that's not the intention. It just has eight long years of thinking behind it, and it's a line of thought that's important to me.
I've done some reminiscing lately, and it's interesting how something I haven't done in three years (and haven't done regularly for many more) still feels normal. It's good to write to you all again, after so long.
It'll be good to write with you all again, too. Not here, unfortunately, but somewhere... Finally.
If you were around on that completely forgettable day three years ago for the last blog, you might recall much-a-do about nothing, some melodrama, and then a plug about starting a Patreon that never actually came around. Crickets from me ever since, and for that, I apologize.
For anyone who wants to get right to it: the Patreon can be found here.
I'm not doing anything elaborate with it. Maybe later, but right now I just want to start again. What you'll see already posted on it might seem familiar, depending on how long you've been around. Don't worry, I blew the dust off before I uploaded it. For most people, even that crusty old relic from 2014 will feel new, since I barely gave it a showing. Give it a read, if you feel up to it. More's coming very soon, I'm just getting my legs back under me, with these three chapters as a buffer. I also wanted to put something down for anyone new who stumbles in, to get an idea of what they're in for with my writing.
You don't need to pay to read. Nobody does, and if you knew me much in the past, you know I would never expect anyone to. Reading should be free, and so every single chapter of every single story I will ever post through the Patreon will be free to everyone. If people want to become Patrons, I want them to decide that without trying to bribe, or bait, or incentivize the choice. There aren't rewards for Patrons yet, it's just an avenue to support the works if people want to, and I'll never be offended if I don't make a penny off the Patreon. Besides, writing has no overhead cost or operating cost, so there's really no point in billing for it.
All of the actual story content is shared through a link right at the top of my About section, so that non-Patrons can easily get to all of it. Patrons will just get the extra benefit of being notified directly and immediately anytime a new chapter is out, but thhat's just an inherent restriction built in to Patreon.
Despite the fact that Patreon seems to mean "I want money" to most people, to me it's more about having a platform that everyone can use, and that they recognize. I want to be official, reachable, get back on track, and write again without having to worry about the environment I'm writing in. Patreon has no affiliations, so it's pleasantly neutral. It just seems to be the smart place to be, as a content creator.
Before making that decision as final as any decision of mine gets, I went back and forth on it for years. I spent a lot of time digging in the toolbox-fallacy: "if only I had ______, then I could do ______."
If only I had my own website, then I could really feel comfortable writing publicly again. If only I had a whole story finished, then I could feel comfortable opening a Patreon. If only I had this, then I could do that. Avoiding that, out of concern for this. Specifically, avoiding writing, out of a concern for a lot of not-writing.
Looking back, having that reminiscence of writing here on FimFiction, made me realize all the evasion for what it was. I never had any of that when I started before: the website, the completed story, or anything else.
I can remember when I wrote my first thing here -The Razorwing Chronicles - and released it into the wild. I was so excited to have fifteen people read it. I was sincerely happy. Then, still excited, I scrapped the entire thing in a fit of passion and wrote a new idea instead, young idiot that I was. I remember having one hundred unique reads on the new one, and losing my absolute mind. I drank and celebrated, and was sincerely happy. I was in another dimension when I hit the feature board in the next couple days, and woke up to find one hundred reads had become thirteen hundred. I was sincerely happy.
Fifteen. One hundred. A thousand, a few thousand, what I found out as I looked back was that I was sincerely happy regardless of what degree of exposure my stories got. I was sincerely happy writing as long as even one person enjoyed it for themselves, and got a sense of adventure from the story. And I was happy not because I was heard of and recognized, but because finally, there were other people who had been on the same adventures I had taken in my head when I wrote them. If my writing was sharing the story with you, then your reading was sharing it back with me.
That was starting. I don't need the explosive takeoff I lucked out and got back in 2012 here. I don't need to be paid, and I don't need to be popular. I just wanted to reach out first to the people who helped me find that extra joy in writing before, and have the chance to take any of you who are still out there on some adventures again.
So, if you're still there: take up the walking stick, and let's see where this road leads once more.
Glad you're back, I hope I can feel that same joy that you do when people read my stuff. I really need to get over views.
Damn.
you, loyal2luna, and a few others have returned in these last few months that we haven't heard from in years. Feeling good man. Glad to see ya still kicking
I feel like it was set up, you, loyal, and a couple others suddenly coming back? Too good to be true, but I will say this though: Welcome home
5494259
In before rainbowbob suddenly post a blog announcing himself to complete the conspiracy.
Honestly though it's nice to see some names from so long be here
It was the right choice to continue following your account, this was good news. Looking forward to this, it's my chance to join in the fun as it happens--instead of the way I found you, your stories already written and your comments already commented. Welcome back.
5494305
I'm going to say something a co-conspirator would say: this is the first I'm hearing about it.
Interesting so many other folks are returning to the writing scene around the same time. Might have something to do with spring kicking in and SAD wearing off.
5494443
Glad to be back, at least in the sense of getting to meet and re-meet the good people of FimFic again, though I'm not exactly staying. I suppose I should have specified more clearly in case anyone has any confusion, but I'm not picking fanfiction back up. I'm going to keep with original fiction as best I can.
5494259
Glad to be back here, but as mentioned in the blog, I'm unfortunately not returning to the site to write fanfiction again. Just wanting to stay in touch, and keep a very old promise to everyone that if I ever set up shop somewhere else, I'd keep you all posted. Thus I posted.
5494171
Views are exciting, no doubt. But I think views are responsible for the thrill, not the joy. Having a nice, long cooling down period helped get perspective on that. It's an interesting sort of tight-rope act: you can't share the story without views, and sharing the story more is good, which means more views is good.... etcetera, etcetera. Just need to stop and remind yourself that views just let you know how shared your story is, but sharing it with anyone at all is the foundation of the experience of being a storyteller.
I'll get to avoid worrying about views, since I'm currently using Google Docs to share out the content, and there's no built-in way to track it. I guess I could set up a Google analytics account and track unique hits on each chapter link, but that's a lot of work for something that's not super important. If people are reading it and getting feelings about it (good or bad, to each their own) then that's good enough for me.
I love it when some of the "Old Guard, as it were, who've moved on, pop back in to see how things are going. Seems to be a theme, recently. Nice to see you.
Hellopaca!
5495237
Good to see you again! It's really exciting to see some of the folks I remember still here. I always wonder who's still reachable through the FimFic portal, and am always pleasantly surprised.
5495460
Greetingsllama!
I'm a bit late to this response, but good to hear from you again.
5745856
Eh, not late enough... Still haven't made a drop of progress, survival has taken priority for a while still.
But always happy to see some old faces, makes the surviving better. Good to see you.
5746378
I hear ya. Trying to survive as well.
I thought there was supposed to be a world ending event before the world turned into a survival-horror but I was wrong.